I passed through Cornwall, fearfully,
as far as Devon. All that way,
no crops sprang up, no meadows bloomed.
The giant thunder-anvils loomed
ugly and dark, in shapes that shifted
eerily as their masses lifted,
battered, butted. The sky-vault cracked.
The whole world’s engine rattled, racked
under the storm cloud’s tyrant blows.
Look: where a winter whirlwind rose
at night, the land turned upside down
and grinding ruin raked the ground.
The peace pact of the winds undone,
their bonds burst and their halters torn,
they raved across the upper air
like maenads, trailing wind-ripped hair.

Biography

ALCUIN OF YORK (735-804) was archbishop of York and adviser at the court of Charlemagne and brought the knowledge of Latin literature to the Franks.

ALDHELM (c. 639 – 25 May 709) was abbot of Malmesbury and bishop of Sherborne. He was the first Anglo-Saxon, as far as we know, to write Latin verse. His best known poetry is Aenigmata, or Riddles, modeled on the riddles of Symphosius.

MARYANN CORBETT lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, and works for the Minnesota Legislature. She holds a doctorate in English from the University of Minnesota and is the author of Breath Control (David Robert Books, 2012, forthcoming) as well as the chapbooks Gardening in a Time of War (Pudding House Press, 2007) and Dissonance (Scienter Press, 2009). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in River Styx, Atlanta Review, Rattle, Linebreak, and Subtropics, among others, as well as The Able Muse Anthology and Hot Sonnets (Entasis Press, 2011). She is also a past receipent of the Lyric Memorial Award and the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize.